Nathaniel Hurd Collection
Nathaniel Hurd (1729/30-1777) was the son of a Boston silversmith, Jacob
Hurd, from whom he learned his trade as a silversmith. Hurd was an
expert at that trade providing a wide range of objects fashioned in the
precious metal and decorated with the ornate embellishments that
characterized the fashionable rococo style of the period. However, in
addition to his abilities as an engraver of three-dimensional silver
objects, Hurd developed his skills at pictorial engraving producing a
large number of bookplates for Boston's elite and prints that served a
number of commercial purposes--military commissions ordered by the
provincial government, trade cards, tables of weights and measures, even
an elegant trio of watch papers on a single sheet with portraits of
James Wolfe, William Pitt and King George III. He also engraved several
important independent prints. He died at an early age, even for the
eighteenth century, and it is difficult not to speculate how his career
would have unfolded after the Revolution. Would he have turned his
artisan skills to industry as did Paul Revere? We will never know.
- Georgia B. Barnhill, Andrew W. Mellon Curator of Graphic Arts
Bibliography: In 2001, the University Art Gallery of the University of
Rochester devoted an issue of its journal, Porticus (volume 20)
to
Nathaniel Hurd. Hollis French compiled Jacob Hurd and His Sons
Nathaniel & Benjamin: Silversmiths 1702-1781. The Walpole Society
published this useful reference work in 1939.
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* Nathaniel
Hurd Collection Box Inventory
For current information on the cataloging status of this and
other AAS collections, choose "Collection Access" below.
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